Auditorium + Video Control Room

Since the main forum couldn't get over that this is a church I thought maybe you all would enjoy seeing it. I'm posting to show you all the technology, not to defend Christianity or my church's mission.

I've been one of four (we rotate) Video Technical Directors at my church. To put it simply, we have five main cameras, four digital sources, and five other sources that output to nine large projector screens and our lobby CCTV feed. I'm the guy that switches all the ins and outs as we run through our church service.

This is my first trial of my phone's cam. Please excuse the quality.

This is the main auditorium from the upper balcony corner. This is the furthest you can get from the main stage and more than double the size of our last auditorium. All of the colored lighting is computer-controlled and can change color on-the-fly. There's led colored lighting embedded under the handrails as well.

The upper three screens can be raised mid-service to reveal a balcony for drama segments. We've yet to do it but I believe they are using it for our upcoming play (Little Women IIRC).

These things are all over, but more on that in the next pic. The walls have sound deadening material. At the top you can see our lighting vents. These open and close during the service to let in the desired amount of outside light.

This is a pic behind the wall mount in the last pic. The mount is there to hide not only the light, but the speaker and microphone as well. There are over one hundred speaker+microphones all over the auditorium. During the musical part of the service you want to hear an echo but during the message part an echo will literally put people to sleep. This system of speakers and microphones, when turned on, create an artificial echo. There's more to it, essentially allowing us to control all the nuances of the sound in the auditorium.

Dead center in the auditorium is the main lighting and sound control. The board on the left is all lighting, fully computer controlled through pre-programmed changes. The white guy in the black jacket on the left is the main audio guy. He works harder than anyone I know.

They can control the booms (four two-ton cranes) mounted over the stage and even the HVAC system from here.

From center stage you can see the rear screen which the speakers and singers use. Also you get a better view of the lighting vents and handrail led's I mentioned earlier.

Now *this* is where the real magic happens: the video control room. This room is manned with five people: computer graphics, camera control, video technical director (me), video director, and unnammed church employee who knows *everything* abuot this setup.

Yes, there are six 50" plasma tv's on the wall. The left side is inputs, the right is outputs, center top is switched feed live, and center bottom is switched feed preview (what'll be live on the channel next).

This is the top level. Nearside is where the video director sits. He calls everything: what shots the cameras should get, what to switch and when, computer graphics feeds, iris control on the cameras if the camera guys is slacking...

Farside is the next pic.

This is the computer graphics station. He has two digital live feed programs. I believe one has four outputs and the other two. He'll feed not only fullscreen static and video shots to us but also greenscreen overlays. Overlays let us use a camera shot background and overlay part of the screen with a video or graphic. For example: your local news has it's popup screen while the anchor speaks and there's a running tagline at the bottom of the screen. The popup and tagline are greenscreen overlays. (not always, but you get the idea)

This is the bottom level nearside, the video technical director position and where I sit. The small touchscreen on the left allows me to control, well, everything that you'd use a remote for: the dvd/blu-ray, the HDTV tuner, all the plasma screens, and a few other random things like a front-of-house iPod.

The bigger touchscreen on the left is used mostly for programming but you *could* control everything from there. I mostly use it for status checks and setup before the service.

There are three panels mounted at an angle straight ahead. The bottom is the communication system control. The center is the live/preview feed control. The top is a mystery to me.

In the middle is where the magic happens. All the buttons will change colors depending on what you're doing.

Our camera control guy sits here. He can view whatever feed he wants on the right screen. On the left is a bunch of gobbledegook that tells him if his color scheme is good. This guy has is the catch-all: he controls the camera iris (right panel), video control room audio (left panel, see below), loading/unloading our backup video playback devices, recording the service for reproduction, and I'm sure a few more things.

It's a pretty hefty board just to control the control room audio but it really does help us out to be able to turn voices up and music down.

This is a bunch of rack mount hardware under the TV's. Most of the real equipment is not in the room. I diddn't have time to get up there. There's eight full size racks stuffed IIRC.

I asked the curch's head of video today how we stacked up against the local tV stations. He told me we outclass all but one local station with video and all local stations with audio.

I'm lucky to get to serve. It's a blast once a month (two rehearsals, two Sat services, two Sunday services. I feel for the guys that are going to run the Christmas services: two rehearsals, two 12/23 services, FOUR 12/24 services.